Indian Consul General Faiz Ahmad Kidwai (center) addresses the Lead 2020 training program at the Indian Consulate in Jeddah Thursday. From left: Salah Karadan, Dr. Ismail Maritheri, Alungal Muhammad, Faiz Ahmad Kidwai, V.P. Muhammad Ali and Abdul Lathief Parappurath. — Courtesy photo Hassan Cheruppa Saudi Gazette
JEDDAH – Eighty Indian students and their parents attentively listened to real-life inspirational stories from Indian Consul General Faiz Ahmad Kidwai, and Chairman and Managing Director of Al Abeer Medical Group Alungal Muhammad at the inaugural session of the LEAD 2020 training program held at the Indian Consulate Thursday. Kidwai, who inaugurated the leadership training program, spoke on how his resolve and diligence helped him scale the ladder of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) after he failed to qualify an engineering admission test. Muhammad, one of the top 10 Indian entrepreneurs in the Kingdom, narrated his saga of success in the business world, and how he fought poverty and miseries in childhood to achieve name and fame. LEAD 2020, a joint program of Al-Abeer Medical Group and Sign Jeddah, aims at supporting talented Indian school students in the city to achieve academic excellence and make them ideal leaders by 2020. Sign's Jeddah President Dr. Ismail Maritheri of King Abdulaziz University was the moderator. He said the program's objective is to re-energize Indian students living in the Gulf, giving them the right direction and guidance besides developing their leadership qualities. The trainee students were picked from 4000 students of grades six and seven from from various international Indian schools in Jeddah through written exams — two phases — followed by a final group discussion. In the first phase, 300 talented students were chosen out of which 80 most qualified students received a ticket to the year-long training program. A question and answer session with Kidwai was the highlight of the event. The sagacious questions of the talented students prompted the Consul General to go down the memory lane and share his experiences with them. Ayesha,a student, asked Kidwai whether he sees failure as a stepping stone for success. He said: “In grades 11 and 12, I took mathematics and wished to do engineering. Even though all my friends got it, but I failed to get it. “But I did not let it dampen my spirits, and my resolve enabled me to do something better, and hence I left science and did my BA. Afterwards I appeared for civil service examination in which I won. There were 350,000 candidates who wrote for civil service preliminary exam. “Out of them, 12,000 qualified for main exam and of which 3,500 were called for interview; and among them only 700 were finally selected for an appointment.” He added: “Failure is always there but you fail only when you are stuck with the feeling that you have failed. “If you have a resolve that you can overcome this and go ahead, then it turns out to be a stepping stone for success. If you have resolve, you can achieve anything that you aspired for.” Ameeqa, a trainee, asked Kidwai: “When you failed engineering exam, did you have a feeling that you could never do anything? “While facing such situations the state of mind is significant. There are some people whose morale plummets even with a single failure and they will never rise up from that failure. “There are many people who constantly try to improve after one or more failures. Trying to improve after each failure is important. “Intelligence is not important but diligence is important. If you are diligent, you can achieve anything you want. You can see this in life and even in class rooms. “Perhaps, a super intelligent or hyper intelligent student may not achieve what an average student, whom you never thought of achieving anything, achieved. “When you will go down memory lane after 10 or 20 years you will see that the average student would have achieved more than what the super intelligent could achieve. “Because the super intelligent thinks he can achieve everything but after one setback he loses his morale whereas the average guy who is diligent keeps trying until achieving the goal.” Kidwai entertained a barrage of questions, especially about the main key to success and qualities of a leader. He briefed that maintaining a positive attitude and identifying one's goal and working hard for achieving it are the main keys to success. He said understanding the followers is the best quality of a leader. “You should know and understand what your people want. You should have always been a step ahead because if you understand what they want, then there is a rare chance for your failure in whatever you do. “Also, if you are sincere in work, even those who oppose you would support and help you achieve that goal,” he said. The students also wanted to know the flux of competition Kidwai had encountered in his career, and the challenges involved in his current position. Kidwai said: “My earnest desire is to improve the conditions of Haj pilgrims and serve them in the best possible manner. “With a limited number of staff, we are tasked to serve more than one million Indians spread out within 2000 km in hundreds of towns and villages from the northern border region of Tabuk to the southern border region of Najran; and reaching out to these people and address their problems are a big challenge and that is what we are trying to accomplish.” Kidwai urged parents to give their wards the right kind of guidance and opportunities that match their talent and aptitude. In his highly motivating and inspiring PowerPoint presentation, Muhammad gave a glimpse of poor childhood days. He asked the students to compare it with their affluent condition. “I had to traverse four km on a rugged terrain to reach the upper primary school, and that was after lending a helping hand to father for two hours in the paddy field daily in the morning. “On weekend, I had to wear the garb of a shepherd to herd four or five goats of mother,” Muhammad said. He recalled drawing his first monthly salary of Re1 after working as an assistant to a physician before landing at the old airport in Jeddah on April 13, 1980. “I started my career in Jeddah as a dishwasher for SR1,000. I worked as an assistant waiter and cashier before being appointed as a secretary, and then as senior supervisor, and accounts manager of UCA insurance company,” he said. During the course of life in Jeddah, Muhammad sustained serious burns in a fire and was hospitalized for 60 days. He also went behind the bars for five days for a traffic offense. He later quit the job and established Al-Abeer polyclinic in 1999 that grew into Al-Abeer Medical Group. At present, under the group there are three hospitals and 10 medical centers where 2,000 Saudis and foreigners are employed who cater to around 2.5 million patients a year. Alungal is now developing his dream project of Al-Abeer Edu City in Malappuram district of Kerala, for which the foundation stone will be laid in August. He announced sponsoring of 10 outstanding Lead 2020 trainee students at the EduCity. Alungal, who is also a patron of Sign Jeddah, gave away gifts to Ruhi Bashina and Muhammad Rushaif, winners of the lucky draw. V.P. Mohammed Ali, managing director of Jeddah National Hospital, and another patron of Sign Jeddah, delivered the felicitation speech. Sign Jeddah Chief Project Coordinator Eng. Abdul Lathief Parappurath presented Lead 2020 presentation, while Academic Director Salah Karadan, General Secretary Anas Parappil, and Bashir Thottiyan were among those who organized the event.
